Global union launches investigation into Department
of Health NHS preferred private bidders
26 November 2009
At a conference attended by hundreds of trade union activists in
the UK, Workers Uniting will launch an investigation into private
U.S.-based healthcare providers who are bidding for work in the
National Health Service (NHS). The conference will be attended by
senior workplace representatives from the UK, Ireland and
USA.
Workers Uniting, the world’s first global union, is a
partnership between Unite from the United Kingdom and the United
Steelworkers (USW) from the United States and Canada.
Workers Uniting has expressed dismay that a number of healthcare
providers who are listed by the UK Department of Health (DoH) as
suitable to bid for work in the public sector are actively opposing
the public healthcare proposals of the Obama administration in the
United States.
The global union which represents three million workers in North
America, the UK and Ireland, has been fighting to provide
healthcare for all by fixing the broken American private insurance
based system – the most expensive in the world – so that no
American will go without healthcare, or be forced into bankruptcy
because of skyrocketing costs. Some 47 million Americans have
no coverage despite health insurance company profits of $25
billion.
Ironically, some of these same insurers are trying to make money
by providing services to the United Kingdom’s National Health
Service – the successful public healthcare system. The fight
in the U.S. has been tough, with the insurance lobby spending
millions to stop reforms.
Gail Cartmail, Unite Assistant General Secretary, said: “Just as
Workers Uniting is fighting to win healthcare for all in the U.S.,
the global union is also working to prevent the profits-over-people
privatisation of the UK health system.
“The global union is launching an investigation of the preferred
bidders chosen by the Department of Health to work within the NHS.
Union activists from primary care trusts all over the UK will be
debating the creeping privatisation of NHS services at the
conference.”
Carol Landry, United Steelworkers International Vice President,
who will also address the meeting, said: “In the United States,
Canada and the United Kingdom, the fight boils down to essentially
the same thing: winning and protecting fair access to quality
health care for all.
“Millions of workers from around the world believe now is the
time to stop putting profits over people and to recognise that
healthcare is a human right, no matter where you live.”
The list of NHS preferred bidders can be viewed on the DoH
website:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_085468.pdf
- Ends –
For more information contact:
Saba Mozakka, Unite, 020 7420 8916, saba.mozakka@unitetheunion.org
Connie Mabin, USW, 412-562-2616, cmabin@usw.org
- Notes to editors -
Source: Time magazine, “A New and Better (But Still
Flawed) Insurance Industry Report,” October 14, 2009. Accessed at
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/10/14/a-new-and-better-but-still-flawed-insurance-industry-report/.
Also, Center for Responsive Politics: http://www.opensecrets.org
At the conference a motion will be discussed on the
fragmentation of healthcare which has allowed an American company
to supply healthcare to the UK in order to win a foothold into the
NHS.
